HP Pavilion Plus 14 Review: It's all about that OLED, IMAX-enhanced display

Pros:
- Premium styling with a solid built
- Aluminium clamshell
- Solid performance for the price
- 2.8K vibrant and lively OLED display with 120Hz refresh rate
- IMAX-certified display makes some content really pop out
- Generous selection of ports
- Top-notch webcam with tons of cool features

Cons:
- Speakers need better tuning
- Could have done with a MicroSD Card slot
- Keyboard takes some getting used
- Battery life can be disappointing.

Price: Starts at Rs 92,999/-
Rating: 4.25/5

Normally, with laptops that cost under Rs 1,00,000 you will either have to choose between solid, bankable performance, or a display that performs phenomenally well, one that will leave your jaw on the floor. With the new Pavilion Plus 14, HP has managed to give users an option where they can have both.

The HP Pavilion Plus 14 may seem like a serious laptop tailored for professionals at first glance. With its tall aspect ratio, understated colour scheme, and sleek chassis design devoid of flashy RGB lighting, it has a very mature appeal. However, under its business-like exterior, there is a standout feature: a 2.8K OLED display that makes it one of the top choices for streaming your favourite OTT series or any other piece of content, on the go.

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Despite its strengths, the laptop does have its drawbacks. While the speakers have been fine-tuned by Bang & Olufsen, they could do with some more work. Also, some users may find the keyboard average at best.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Specs and features
This specific laptop featured an Intel i7-1355U CPU as its processing unit. Additionally, it was configured with 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, set up in a dual-channel arrangement (2x8GB), running at a speed of 5200 MTs.

For the display, you can either opt for the 14-inch non-touch OLED 2.8K (2880X1800) panel or an 2.2k IPS display (2230x1400). Both these displays are in a 16:10 aspect ratio and look phenomenal. Moreover, both of these displays have been tuned by IMAX.

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For storage, our unit featured a 1TB PCIe Gen 4 M.2 SSD.

Regarding connectivity options, we get one Type C Thunderbolt 4 rated at 40Gbps signalling rate with USB Power Delivery and DisplayPort 1.4, one more Type-C port with USB Power Delivery and DisplayPort™ 1.4 but only 10Gbps signalling, 2 Type-A USB port, of which one gets 10Gbps signalling rate and the other 5Gbps. We also get one HDMI 2.1 port and one headphone/microphone combo. We miss out on a MicroSD Card slot.

The battery in our unit had a capacity of 68Whr, and it came with a substantial 65W charging adapter. For security, we have a privacy shutter for the 1080p webcam, as well as support for Windows Hello. We do miss out on a fingerprint sensor though.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Design and build quality
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 laptop has a sleek and professional appearance, especially in its silver colour. It’s built with high-quality aluminium, giving it a sturdy feel, despite weighing under 1.44kgs and a maximum thickness of 17.55mm. Plus, the metal construction makes the lid of the clamshell chassis a bit heavy and sturdy, but light enough that it can be opened easily with one hand.

The build quality is top-notch thanks to the aluminium but that does make it susceptible to fingerprints and smudges every now and then. Luckily, because of the colour and finish of the panels, more often than not you don’t really see the fingerprints and smudges unless you go looking for it.

The Pavilion Plus 14 boasts a minimalist design with clean lines and a subtle chrome HP logo on the lid. Adding a touch of style, there’s a slight edge below the keyboard. It comes in three colour options: Natural Silver, Tranquil Pink, and Moonlight Blue, making it visually appealing. However, the display bezels are thin on the sides but larger on the top and bottom, made of plastic, which takes away from its modern and premium feel. Having said that, considering its price and the overall package that it is, this one thing that most people can easily overlook

The port selection is also great, and so is the placement.

The HP Pavilion Plus 14 features a large vent at the bottom, along with hidden vents near the hinge, which elevate the laptop slightly for better airflow. Additionally, it includes horizontally running feet at the bottom, which aids in heat dissipation.

Overall, the HP Pavilion Plus 14 not only boasts a sturdy build but also an upscale design. Its appearance exudes a premium feel, accentuated by the glass finish of the HP logo on the lid. Up close, the laptop gives off an impression of being more expensive than it actually is.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Keyboard and trackpad
HP offers some great keyboards with its premium laptops. The keyboard on the HP Pavilion Plus 14, although good, isn’t my favourite. The keys are properly sized, and they feel pretty good to type on, but they aren’t as good as some of the keyboards that HP’s competitors are offering at this price point. It takes some getting used to, to be honest.

The keys on the HP Pavilion Plus 14 have some depth, which may not be ideal for those who prefer touch typing. Having said that, they still offer a comfortable typing experience once you adapt to them. While not extremely crisp or sharp, they are far from being the worst keyboard I’ve encountered on a laptop.

One positive aspect is that the keycaps are well-sized and properly spaced out. Additionally, it comes with a backlit keyboard, which is a always useful feature.

On the flip side, the trackpad is a delight to operate. It offers ample space and is thoughtfully positioned, given the laptop’s size and keyboard layout. Moreover, it’s impressively accurate and responsive, featuring excellent palm rejection algorithms. Not only is it incredibly precise and user-friendly, but it also tracks smoothly, enhancing the overall usability. Additionally, the satisfying click feedback it provides contributes to a more enjoyable user experience.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Webcam and speakers
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 comes with a thin top bezel housing a high-quality webcam featuring a 5MP sensor, HP Wide Vision, and a physical shutter for enhanced security and privacy. Additionally, it includes an infrared camera supporting Windows 11 Hello facial recognition, ensuring fast and reliable authentication.

The webcam on this laptop stands out as one of the best in its class, surpassing even premium models from other brands. HP also uses several algorithms and software enhancements to improve image and video quality for better detail.

The camera accurately captures colours and performs well in various lighting conditions, while consistently delivering a superb performance. It also features Temporal Noise Reduction for further enhancing image quality. Moreover, it comes with dual array digital microphones for clear audio.

Coming to the speakers, however, the audio quality leaves something to be desired. The two downward-firing speakers tend to distort at high volume levels. Although they are pretty good enough to consume content by yourself, the sound coming out of the Bang & Olufsen speakers lacks bass. The mids and highs though are pretty solid. For better sound quality, you may want to use headphones or connect an external Bluetooth speaker.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Display
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 features an impressive 2.8K OLED display with a resolution of 2880X1800 pixels, offering a refresh rate ranging from 48 to 120 Hz. With its Ultra-Wide Viewing Angle (UWVA), micro-edge design, and BrightView technology, this display delivers stunning visuals with vibrant colours and deep blacks right out of the box. It also covers 100 per cent of the DCI-P3 colour range, 100 per cent of sRGB and 95 per cent of AdobeRGB.

The display is also IMAX-enhanced, which not only provides a special aspect ratio for supported content, it also makes certain IMAX content look great

The OLED display is ideal for creative work, and media consumption, whereas the 16:10 aspect ratio is great for all sorts of productivity tasks. Thanks to its 16:10 aspect ratio, the display provides ample screen real estate for tasks like spreadsheet management, document editing, and video editing in applications like Premiere Pro and Lightroom.

Moreover, because this is an OLED panel, it offers significant improvements over IPS panels, especially at this price point. Thanks to the OLED panel’s colour accuracy I was more than happy to colour grade certain videos and colour correct a lot of photos in Lightroom.

Even outdoors, the display performed brilliantly well, and was accurate in reproducing colours, with almost no issues to visibility. However, at an angle, there are some issues while reading or watching content.

HP has done an excellent job calibrating the display, ensuring accurate colours and contrast for an immersive viewing experience. It offers impressive contrast and vibrant colours, enhancing the visual quality of games and other content.

In terms of build quality, the display housing is sufficiently sturdy, with minimal flex and wobbling. Overall, the Pavilion Plus 14’s OLED display uplifts the viewing experience, no matter the task that you are using it for or the kind of content you’re watching.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Performance: Productivity and Gaming
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 boasts an impressive hardware lineup, delivering a strong performance that sometimes even surpasses laptops equipped with a P-series Core i7 CPU. The CPU boosts up to 5.0 GHz and comes with a 12 MB L3 cache. It also gets 2 Performance cores and 8 Efficient cores for a total of 10 cores and it gets 12 threads.

Moreover, the Pavilion Plus 14 comes with Intel’s Evo certification, which means it meets some of Intel’s most stringent guidelines. Not only do laptop manufacturers have to meet certain hardware and specification benchmarks like featuring Thunderbolt 4, WiFi 6E, and other features, they also need to adhere to some quality-of-life features, like waking up from sleep in about a second.

In benchmarks, the HP Pavilion Plus 14 gets some noteworthy scores in benchmarks. In Cinebench R23, it got a score of 1547 on the single-core test and 6897 in the multicore test. In Geekbench6, it had a single-core score of 2435 as opposed to a multi-core score of 8613. In PC Mark10 it had an overall score of 5401 and in 3DMark Time Spy, it had a score of 1644.

In CrossMark, it had an Overall score of 1488, 1443 in Productivity, 1585 in Creativity and 1351 in Responsiveness.

Although the Intel Core i7-1355U processor seems modest on paper, this powerhouse of a CPU packs a serious punch and is more than capable in real-world scenarios. Thanks to Intel’s thread director and hybrid performance, which divides E-cores and P-cores, the Core i7-1355U excels in both light, single-threaded tasks and heavier multi-threaded tasks.

While not designed for gaming and lacking a dedicated GPU, the Pavilion Plus 14 handles light gaming such as Rocket League at 1920x1200 resolution and medium visual settings with pretty solid framerates. It also manages tasks like batch-processing images in Lightroom with ease.

However, like most thin and lights, the Pavilion Plus 14 does experience some heat buildup, especially under sustained heavy loads. While it does become warm, it doesn’t reach alarming levels, and there are no signs of thermal throttling even during peak temperatures.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Battery
The HP Pavilion Plus 14’s battery life leaves something to be desired. While it performs well under light usage, engaging in activities like content consumption and running multiple Chrome tabs can quickly drain the battery. With integrated graphics, the laptop manages an average battery life of around 7-8 hours.

Equipped with a 68Wh battery, HP likely opted for a smaller size to maintain the laptop’s thin and light profile. However, this decision results in only average battery performance. A larger battery would have significantly improved the laptop’s battery life, especially considering how power-hungry that OLED display might get at peak brightness.

During our testing, which involved writing, photo editing, and streaming content from platforms like YouTube and Netflix, we experienced approximately 6.5 hours of usage before needing to recharge. While not terrible, other brands offer laptops with longer-lasting batteries.

HP Pavilion Plus 14 (2023) Review: Verdict
The HP Pavilion Plus 14 comes with some really impressive performance chops, thanks to a solid combination of an Intel Core i7 processor and a stunning OLED display. This laptop is built to handle everyday tasks effortlessly, and reliable choice for both work and entertainment purposes.

Whether you’re tackling office assignments or indulging in multimedia content, the HP Pavilion effortlessly fits into both these roles. However, there are a couple of areas where it could improve. The speakers could have been better tuned, and the battery life could be more optimized considering the size of the chassis.

Nevertheless, in terms of performance, the Pavilion Plus 14 shines. Throughout our testing, it consistently proved its capability, never leaving us wanting for more power. While there may be other laptops in a similar price range with better battery life, none can match the Pavilion Plus 14’s outstanding performance and impressive display quality.

While HP is playing it safe with the HP Pavilion Plus 14, it is a really solid, dependable machine, one that seems will go the distance. Starting At Rs 92,000, it already is a great value-for-money package for most people. Considering that HP often runs some discount programme or the other, you can pick up the Pavilion Plus 14 for considerably less. That makes the laptop even more appealing, and one that we would happily recommend.